The Power of the Bishop Pair

Every so often on chess.com I’ll read a post in the forums where someone is trying to claim that the bishop pair is meaningless.

Here is an excellent example of the bishop pair in action. Look at this position through the eyes of, let’s say, an advanced novice (we’ll say rated around 1000) and the first thing that you probably see is that White is up a pawn and has “shattered” Black’s kingside pawns.

1r1r2k1/5p2/5p1p/p1b1p3/P3B3/1bN3P1/1P2PP1P/R4RK1 w - - 0 24

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Yet Black makes the most of the bishop pair to steer this game to a draw. Here is the entire game. The position above is after Black’s 23rd move.